Sleeping Stark
by tt22123
Summary: Tony has trouble sleeping and when his body begins to shut down from exhaustion, he always ends up on the floor of a different team member. Tonight is Steve's turn, shame he never received the memo. I don't own any of the characters. May evolve into Stony if that is what people want of the story.


Tony stumbled from four days straight in the lab and practically crawled from the elevator when it stopped on the floor. He was too tired to notice that he hadn't pushed the button for the right floor though. When he designed the tower, he expected to be stumbling around drunk most nights so the layout of all of the living quarters was the same, no matter who's floor he was on. Bruce had often found Tony curled up next to him when he woke up the next day, the man dead to the world, and the only other person to have had this was Natasha.

As his assistant, she had pretended to hate the man and allowed her distaste to show when they teamed up, only Tony knowing it was fake. While she had worked with him as he was dying, they had grown closer and she was one of his best friends.

As much as they fought in front of others, she was the one that Tony leaned on when his depression reared its head and the one that he would go to for silent company if he was struggling with the loneliness that built around him. Natasha was used to him appearing in the night and falling into bed with her, objecting the first time with his playboy past but tearful eyes had looked into hers shamefully as he went to leave.

It was then that he was allowed to stay with her but it wasn't for another two or three weeks that he began to seek out her contact when he crawled into her bed. Once again, the first time she pushed him away but the broken confession that she wasn't the right gender for him had left her rocking a sobbing billionaire in her lap.

Natasha hadn't expected to be the only person that the man had trusted with this revelation but seeing how broken Tony seemed to think himself for liking the same gender, she couldn't bring herself to tell another soul. So often she had found herself waking to him coming in her room in the middle of the night that she didn't even reach for her knife anymore. She had learnt the pattern well of his cycle and knew that he was due to appear in her room and she woke up at the time he would always arrive to find no one there.

"JARVIS, where is Tony?"

"He has just arrived on Captain Roger's floor of the tower Ma'am."

"Shit," she whispered under her breath but decided there was nothing that she could really do about it.

"Hey Tasha," Tony mumbled as he collapsed onto the bed, seeking out the body of the other. "You've been working out," he added when he encountered firm muscles but it didn't register that this wasn't his assassin. Steve, however, was frozen in a state of shock and confusion that the man had mistaken him for the ballerina and crawled into bed with him.

He stiffly laid there until it was time for him to get up and he extracted himself from under the man and made a quick escape to the team floor.

"Stark found you last night then Steve?" Natasha asked as soon as he appeared looking dumbstruck.

"He was looking for you."

"He was looking for a bed. Mine is the usual one, or Bruce's, seems he has found a new target."

"It's wrong to share another man's bed, he could get arrested for that." Natasha laughed heartily with her head thrown back.

"It's not illegal Rogers. Not even close. It is even celebrated now with parades and everything. Even so, he isn't even there for that. He doesn't come to my room because he is trying to sleep with me. He needs someone there to keep away the nightmares for him to sleep Steve. Do you know what those nightmares are? He dreams that we are all dead because he couldn't save us. He just needs someone there when his body can't take him forcing himself to stay awake any longer."

"He thought you'd been working out."

"He's exhausted Steve. Normally I'll stay with him until he wakes at around 2 in the afternoon after he crawls onto my bed at 1 in the morning. Then I repeat that cycle 5 days later. He won't face those nightmares until he has to and as much as he claims he is just too tired to go to the right floor, he really just needs the body, and the warmth, and the heartbeat."

"I didn't know."

"He doesn't like to show weakness. You pointed it out straight away. Take away the suit and he's nothing. Why do you think he took that missile through the portal? That was his suicide attempt. That was his attempt at killing himself and dying a hero so he could somewhat impress you in the end."

"I never meant it like that."

"But he took it like that. SHIELD wouldn't take him into the Avengers because he was too unstable but he wormed his way in there. You undermined all that in the first day as a supposed team. Our first day working together and you made him feel like such a piece of shit that he tried to kill himself in our first real mission as a TEAM. I may not have got on well with him but I liked him and you were a jerk. I know that he was too but he grew up beaten and neglected for not being you so of course he was going to resent you but you were meant to be this great American hero who loves all, especially Stark, and you ripped him to shreds. I'm amazed he made it until our first mission for him to attempt."

"He wasn't actually trying to kill himself."

"Oh use your brain Cap."

"He was just taking the missile through."

"He could have just changed the trajectory. It would have locked onto the Chitauri ships before he had even gone through. He was just using the excuse not to have come back."

"So I'm the reason that he can't sleep anymore."

"No. Not quite. Well, sort of. He fears your death. You are the one that put into his head that he will always be too inadequate to save any of us though. Not that he wouldn't have drawn that conclusion himself but you cemented it. You made it real because you proved that those thoughts weren't just in his mind." Steve turned and walked away, back to his own floor, without another word. He walked into the bedroom to lay back down with the other but found the room empty.

"Where is Tony, JARVIS?"

"Sir is in his lab, he woke up soon after you left and thought it best he leave." Steve nodded once but wheeled around towards the stairs and took them two at a time as he made his way down towards the lab. He spied the man through the glass walls before he even reached the door and smiled sadly, not saying a word still as he walked in and over to the man. He seemed to stand and consider the tired man for a few moments which made Tony burn in embarrassment.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to end up on your floor last night," he mumbled as he dropped his gaze. Steve wrapped him in his arms and pulled him over towards the extra long couch in the corner, laying down on it with Tony on his chest and wrapped in his arms.

"I'm sorry I left and woke you up. Go back to sleep." Steve rested one hand on Tony's back while the other lifted to stroke through his hair soothingly.

"You don't have to-"

"I know. I want to. I really am sorry, I didn't know."

"I get that Steve. I do. I didn't want you to. I'm going to kill 'Tasha. She knows she's not meant to tell anyone."

"I was kinda freaked out that we were going to be arrested if anyone found out you were in my bed."

"You and James Buchanan Barnes shared?"

"Rooms, not beds. Even then it was blooming risky."

"'Blooming'? You're so cute sometimes Cap."

"Go to sleep Tony."

"Stay safe Steve," he mumbled while tangling fingers into blonde hair, keeping the man close as he buried his face into the man's neck and let his eyes drift closed. The soldier led there and continued to hold the other as he fell into a deeper sleep, thinking and despairing over the man who felt the need to plead with him to be safe while he slept just to be able to relax enough to go to sleep.


End file.
